


show me devotion (take me all the way)

by havisham



Series: havisham's SASO 2017 works collection [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boy Band, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 08:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: After Rin left their boy band, Sousuke was bitter. Really bitter. But he managed to channel all of the negative feelings into his own solo career and found success.But what happens now that Rin is back and hotter than ever?





	show me devotion (take me all the way)

**Author's Note:**

> Written For SASO 2017 Bonus Round 1: AUs, for [this prompt:](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=9746962#cmt9746962) _SouRin, Band AU. They used to be part of the same band, but that band fell apart when Rin left. Now they're rivals._
> 
> Sousuke just has a lot of feelings, okay!

Kisumi said he didn't resent Rin for what he did, which only meant that Sousuke had to resent him for both his and Kisumi’s sake. The Sano Trio had been climbing the charts before Rin decided to leave and join the Iwatobi Dreamers, and without Rin, they'd crashed hard. No one wanted to book a group that had suddenly gone from being a trio to a duo. So, reluctantly, both Sousuke and Kisumi had to leave the band behind. 

Nowadays, Kisumi did more acting and presenting than anything else -- he was surprisingly popular on that front, and there was even talk that he was slated to replace Kise Ryouta one of these days on the daytime talk show that Kise had started. 

And for Sousuke? Well, he'd gone solo -- really solo. He wrote his own songs, played his own music. His group of fans were small but extremely passionate and mostly online. Most of Sousuke’s songs dealt with lost love and betrayal, as well as redheaded devils who won your heart just to break it. Sousuke had never been a subtle man. 

Rin, for his part, didn't seem to know or care that he'd become Sousuke’s muse. Shortly after deflecting to Iwatobi, he moved on again, this time overseas to Australia for several years. He'd only come back this year, leaner and meaner than ever -- and so hot that Sousuke thought he'd die if he saw yet another paparazzi picture of him. Not that this stopped him from looking. 

“You realize this is unhealthy, right,” Kisumi told him during one of their rare lunch dates when Sousuke had drifted off yet again, starting at his phone. When had Rin even found time to go to the beach and _why_ was he even allowed to wear a swimsuit that small? 

“Huh? I'm not --” Sousuke blinked as Kisumi took his phone out of his suddenly nerveless hand. Kisumi took a look at its contents for a minute before he snorted and shut it off. “Look, Sou, I know Rin leaving messed you up, but you have to concentrate on this live session you have coming up. This could really get your name out there -- I mean, outside internet circles where people write fanfic about you and Rin.” 

“Nobody writes about me and Rin anymore,” Sousuke protested, but he shut up at Kisumi’s weary look. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop. I know I need to concentrate on this. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.” 

Kisumi beamed at him. “Don’t thank me, thank my corporate overlords. And the hordes of teenage girls who like to cry over you.” 

“I thank them every day,” Sousuke said, and proposed a toast. 

*

Sousuke hadn’t been under this kind of pressure since he was fifteen and the Sano Trio was still a thing. The lights of the studio were making him sweat under his makeup and he felt as nervous as a newbie. The audience didn’t exactly help, although he couldn’t really make out out anything besides the first row of faces. Those faces looked interested or excited, and none of them looked bored. That was good, right?

All right. Time to conquer his fears. Sousuke closed his eyes and began to sing. 

His voice was rough and cracked at some places, but still, he did it. Ten minutes in, someone thought to give him a printout of some of his new music and his glasses. Sousuke put them on and sighed in relief. A mutter went through the crowd and someone yelled out a compliment on his glasses. Sousuke blinked, surprised. These old things? They weren't even the latest style... 

He surveyed the crowd, finally, and almost immediately spotted _him_. A little in the back and in a hat and sunglasses that made him stand out more than it hid him -- there was Rin. Sousuke would have recognized that toothy smile, like a damn shark’s, anywhere. 

It took some balls to just stand there and smile when listening to songs that not-so-subtly condemned you, but Sousuke knew (now) that Rin’s ego was big enough to take it. After the recording was over, Sousuke stalked backstage and managed to elude his manager for long enough to see him, leaning against a wall next to the table catering had set up. Like he belonged there. Rin always could get into places he had no right to be in. Sousuke grabbed him and pulled him into an empty dressing room. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Sousuke hissed. 

Rin grinned at him. So arrogant. So handsome. So -- _shut up_ , Sousuke commanded his brain. 

“Still thinking about me, Sousuke?” 

“I don’t think about you at all,” Sousuke lied. Then he kissed him. 

*

The next time, it was Rin who was on stage and the song he sang was all about childhood friends who found love again after years apart. Pretty trite garbage, Sousuke thought, from his little corner of the amphitheater. That didn’t stop his heart from beating really, really hard or stop him from grinning like a weirdo. Good thing no one could recognize him from here. 

(… At least that was what he thought, until pictures of him at the concert surfaced online.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Carly Rae Jepson.


End file.
